Sega Cheng was pursuing an Engineering Degree at Stanford University 15 years ago when he watched how an Artificial Intelligence-powered, self-driving car roamed around his campus one day.

“That was wild to me back then because I thought if one could do something as complex as driving a car with just a machine, imagine what other things you could solve with the same application,” he recalled.

“And that set the tone for my entrepreneurial journey. I wanted to build something just like that,” he said about that defining moment. “That’s when I realised that AI can really help people in many ways.”

Just like any aspiring engineer would do to kickstart a career, Cheng joined Google Taiwan where he built Google Maps (specifically Google Transit in Taiwan) working with a dedicated software engineering team.

And then in 2012, he left the tech behemoth to build something that “I would imagine would be irreplaceable just like Google”.

And that led him to start iKala.

AI competence in enterprises

iKala’s mission is to enable AI competence in enterprises. The company seeks to boost customer acquisition capability as well as its lifetime value by providing AI-driven digital transformation solutions.

Also Read: 2019: A hell of a year for marketers with chat and voice bots

The firm offers three solutions:

• iKala Cloud: The cloud service enables enterprises to get access to cloud infrastructure through GCP, G Suite as productivity solution, iKala CDP as a customer data platform, Straas that provides AI-enabled video streaming, and Picaas for AI image optimisation.
• KOL Radar: A performance-based influencers marketing service that helps businesses match with the right influencers. The service is currently available in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Malaysia, with more than 50,000 influencers available to work with through social media channels such as Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, and the latest one, TikTok.
• Shoplus: A social selling platform that seeks to connect to businesses’ fan page and turn it into a webstore. It offers features such as AI live sell for FB live streaming buyers, that allows users to capture buying intent automatically from comments and messages and contact the buyers simultaneously while doing live sales. It also provides AI chatbot feature for FB post buyers and AI messenger plug-in for buyers who reach users through messenger inbox that help capture customer shipping information automatically from the chatting content and create orders and send the bill to the buyers directly while communicating with them in the messenger.

iKala also has a new division called iKala commerce, which consolidated KOL Radar and Shoplus to become a sales channel, where merchants and advertisers can expand their territory using its AI-powered tools.

Currently, iKala has operations in Taiwan, Singapore, Japan, Hong Kong, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam.

iKala.tv’s pivot

iKala was originally started in 2012 as an online streaming video service. 

“We started as an online video karaoke platform. But that was costly because of the royalty fees needed to be paid to record companies,” Cheng recalled. 

“It did never have a business model that could cover what we had, even though we once had over three million active users. The business model was not correct and investors were questioning if it was a viable business because we were burning a lot of money,” he recalled.

So the iKala team took a step back to understand how it could be turned into something more scalable and still solving problems.

“The pivot didn’t happen instantly, we carefully assessed everything before focussing our products on what now would be KOL Radar and Shoplus,” he shared.

How COVID-19 affects AI

While the firm has a variety of products catering to different types of customers across seven countries, including those with physical stores, iKala is not immune to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“There’s a paradigm shift in the digital world and the physical world. Most businesses lose all of their sales channels, with stores closing with limited to no physical business at all. Sales channels are being shifted online, that’s for starters,” he said.

“What makes it hard for those who didn’t have AI tools in their disposal is that brands and advertisers are getting wiser and wiser in the allocation of their advertising budget since the pandemic. They’re not just throwing out money to test out which channels work best, but they now go for a performance-based marketing solution, which is measurable in each campaign with AI,” he continued.

Also Read: Singapore’s startup Wiz.ai nabs US$6M pre-Series A funding led by GGV Capital

Cheng then pulled out an example of one of its customers in Thailand who is using Shoplus to sell gold. 

“This guy managed to boost his sales up to 61 per cent between March and April this year without any additional investment in his company,” Cheng boasted.

He claims it proves his point that AI is increasingly moving from a “nice to have” tech into a “must-have tech” after the pandemic. “Previously, not many people understood the AI world and how it can benefit their business, and now, the paradigm shift allows people to embrace AI and make it applicative in their day-to-day lives, with advertising adjusting fast pursuing this AI commerce,” Cheng said.

The learning

Being in the business of AI, it’s easy to get all technical and just stay focussed on tech improvements. AI allows limitless possibilities and innovation, and iKala is on board with that, he says.

“We initially took pride in being a product company, but along the way, we evolved to become more and more customer-centric, and now we call ourselves a customer company,” he smiled.

The reason is that iKala has found out that what matters is not whether the product is the best in the world, but if it can solve the customers’ problems. “If we can satisfy customers’ needs, then we’re successful. This is especially true for AI adoption because everyone is using AI in different domains to satisfy their needs.”

“We’ve come a long way to use the right technology and methodology. We should put humans at the centre of AI adoption. We put AI behind the scene as the application for the human. Human and machine should not overwhelm each other but should work in favour of each other,” he added.

AI is happening now

With its ongoing mission of putting human-centric AI for customer acquisition through conversational AI, Cheng shared that in Thailand alone, more than 200 billion valuable conversations are happening every day.

“These conversations happen in a big social market in Thailand, which is worth about US$10 million in a year. There are conversations on social platforms happening in Southeast Asia now, and there’s a real business value generated from this conversation,” said Cheng. “I believe moving forward, conversational AI is a way to go for Southeast Asia.”

Right now, the company is actively approaching investors from the Southeast Asia region, he said. “We’re prepared to expand to Indonesia and also Malaysia.

The company also recently hired former Google Managing Director Dr Lee-Feng Chien (known to be the prominent figure behind the establishment of Google and its data centres in Taiwan) to its board.

“We imagine a future where every business can do e-commerce or social commerce just by talking on the phone, which can help them start an e-commerce business with minimum spending. That’s the goal and that is a highly viable business,” Cheng said.

“We hope that iKala commerce can handle all channels, social platforms, stores, all kinds of e-commerce platforms you have in your hand. That’s the direction that we’re going,” Cheng signed off.

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Picture Credit: iKala

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Updates: The article has been updated to include information about co-founder Lingga Madu’s departure.

Indonesia’s fashion e-commerce platform Sorabel is confirmed to be shutting down by the end of this month, joining the list of startups that were forced to end their operations due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

In an internal email to its employees (a copy of which is in the possession of DailySocial), Sorabel explained that it did its best to save the business, but had had to go through liquidation.

The liquidation process includes the disbandment of the organisation by a liquidator followed by debt collection and asset distributions to claimants.

“Due to this liquidation process, we have to terminate employment contracts with no exception, effective July 30. I am certain that no one would ever expect this to happen,” the letter stated.

The management stated its commitment to ensuring that all employees’ rights are being fulfilled during the process, including religious holiday support. It is also committed to abiding by all the regulations and decisions of the liquidators.

Also Read: How Sorabel was able to push for growth after rebranding

Employees are expected to return the assets of the company, which will be resold and processed by liquidators. The management also promised to help them find a new job from the investors’ network of more than 100 companies.

“This might be the end of our journey with Sorabel. I hope that we can keep the good memories that we have had together in this place … The company expresses its deepest gratitude to you for fighting until the very end,” read the letter .

Before this development, Sorabel had announced in February on social media the shutdown of its Philippines unit, Yabel.

The journey of Sorabel

The company was started in 2014 as Sale Stock before rebranding itself to Sorabel. Throughout its journey, it introduced several innovations, including the ‘try-first-pay-later’ feature.

The firm had also laid off around 200 of its employees in 2016. Despite this, it successfully closed a Series B+ funding round, led by Meranti ASEAN Growth Fund.

Sorabel Co-founder Lingga Madu once stated that its business model was the healthiest when compared to other e-commerce platforms in Indonesia.

In 2018, Madu claimed the company had achieved break-even and was ready to make a profit. Back then, he compared Sorabel’s unit economics to that of global fashion e-commerce players such as Asos and Revolve.

Also Read: Indonesian fashion e-commerce site Sale Stock changes its name to Sorabel

Sorabel became more aggressive following the rebranding in the beginning of last year. It began its expansion to realise its ambition to provide “quality and affordable fashion items” for the “next billion users.”

Yabel had even announced plans to expand to the Middle East.

In its final interview with DailySocial, Sorabel announced that it was closing a Series C funding round from investors, including Kejora Ventures, Ncore Ventures, OpenSpace, Shift, Gobi Partners, MNC Media Investment, SMDV, Golden Equator Capital, and Convergence Ventures.

In a message to e27, Madu stated that he and co-founder Ariza Novianti had left the company in October 2019.

He declined to comment on the liquidation of the company.

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The article Sorabel Tutup Operasional Akhir Juli 2020 was written in Bahasa Indonesia by Marsya Nabila for DailySocial. English translation and editing by e27.

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Vulpes invests in Hiip

The story: Singapore-based influencer platform Hiip has secured an undisclosed sum in a bridge round of funding.

Investors: Vulpes Special Opportunities Fund (lead) and other unnamed investors.

Plans with the money: To take advantage of potential acquisition opportunities that have arisen as a result of COVID-19.

What is Hiip?: It is an influencer platform in Southeast Asia that claims to be helping 500 brands to connect and work with more than 10,000 social influencers based on Big Data and Artificial Intelligence. The company has offices in Vietnam, Indonesia and Thailand.

According to the firm, its revenue in June 2020 was double that of June 2019.

Grab, gojek competing to invest in LinkAja

The story: KrAsia has reported, citing unnamed sources that gojek and Grab are in a close race to become an investor in the Indonesian digital payment platform.

Why: For gojek it’s about beating Grab. If Ovo and Dana merge, they will be in a strong position against GoPay, said one source to KrAsia.

LinkAja is currently in the process of raising US$200 million Series B funding.

13 startups selected for YSI SEA-Temasek’s programme

The story: 23 young entrepreneurs from 13 startups from Southeast Asia will showcase their innovative solutions to address pressing sustainability challenges, at Youth Sustainable Impact Southeast Asia (YSI SEA) and Temasek Foundation’s Virtual Demo Day 2020 on 23 July 2020.

The entrepreneurs will pitch to an online audience comprising more than 150 high profile investors, incubators and businesses, in order to secure opportunities to further develop and bring their solutions to the marketplace.

The entrepreneurs, who are between the age of 18 and 35, are selected from a field of more than 1,100 applicants to participate in an online five-month-long Innovative Programme since March 2020.

What is Innovation Programme?: It is a platform to build capacity among the youths to innovate for sustainability, share fundamental sustainability knowledge to spur sustainable entrepreneurial activity, and enable impactful solutions to grow with tools, networks and opportunities.

This year’s Innovation Programme focuses on sustainable solutions for the circular economy, food and agriculture, and energy.

Which are the startups?

Archi: Converting biomaterial from coffee ground waste and other agricultural waste to consumer products such as cups and mugs

Bali Recycle Up: Recycling floral waste into organic incense

The Bamboo Company: Aiming to put bamboo in all parts of one’s life, from houses to products, from food to furniture

Cinemawithoutwall: Creating interactive visual data storytelling for better and faster decision-making, through a multimedia crowdsourcing hub

Circular Blueprint: Upcycling plastic wastes into eco-building materials to make housing more affordable, safer and better

Datanam: Enabling precision vertical farming that is optimised with data

Frescue: Connecting excess food supply with the unmet food demands by redistributing edible but unconsumed food to people and organisations

Hidragro: Providing hydroponic and aquaponic solutions along with training and education to farmers to provide healthier, tech-driven ways of growing and consuming food produce

Leaf.ly: Using Artificial Intelligence to reduce farm expenses by shortening the waiting time and optimising fertiliser input

Light of Hope: Providing clean, renewable energy by incorporating circular economy principles of recycling plastic bottles and using ‘Internet of Things’ for smart monitoring of energy consumption

Phytopia: Horizontally integrating the supply chain that connects farmers with agritech and students with affordable and healthier food in the form of a salad bowl

Rectyic: Converting plastic waste into functional lifestyle items

Solytair: Providing renewable energy powered outdoor cooling systems that help cities and businesses improve the health and well-being of the public on a large scale

Food Asia Award 2020 announces 11 finalists

The story: Singapore’s Future Food Asia (FFA) has revealed the 11 startup finalists competing for its US$100,000 Food Asia Award 2020.

When: The event will take place from 21-25 September 2020. The conference will allow all 11 finalists to present their innovation in front of investors, industry leaders and domain experts.

Who are the finalists?:

AgNext (India): Provides a technology platform for rapid commodity assessment solutions across procurement, trade, production and consumption of food and agriculture value chains.

Agrisea (US): Has developed a way to grow crops in high salt conditions such as salt soils or coastal ocean waters.

Aqua Development (South Korea): Develops and implements nature- inspired aquaculture system KAMI SYS, which it claims achieves 10x higher productivity, zeero antibiotics and chemicals, zero water exchange, competitive production costs.

Crowde (Indonesia): An agriculture-focused fintech startup that puts in touch investors with farmers that are looking for capital to grow business, create employment, and support local communities.

Flurosat (Australia): A full crop cycle analytics provider that delivers proactive reports and alerts on crop performance, stress, nutrient requirements, and sustainable management practices to crop advisors and agronomists in 14 countries.

Fyto Foods: Its plant-based meats resemble uncut real meats and when sliced or diced, would look, cook and taste like real meats with real nutrition

Marine Innovation (South Korea): Goes green and replaces the plastics with its seaweed-based products.

ProAgni (Australia): Develops and commercialises animal nutrition products which improve farm economics and address global challenges, such as food security, antimicrobial resistance, and emissions.

Soos (Israel):  Its solution uses sound waves to transform male embryos into egg-laying females, thereby increasing production capacity in commercial hatcheries.

TartanSense (India): Addresses the problem of weed management for cotton farmers in India through its flagship technology Brijbot.

TerraQuanta (China): Focuses on large-scale application of satellite remote sensing imagery and AI-based data processing technologies to provide insightful data service to fields such as agriculture, forestry, as well as environment protection.

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Image Credit: Hiip

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Fave, Southeast Asian fintech platform providing QR payments and loyalty cashback to restaurant and retailers, has announced a strategic partnership and investment from Pine Labs, Asia’s digital payments and merchant commerce platform.

The partnership will see Fave’s QR code become interoperable and integrated with Pine Lab’s terminals, enabling a single and seamless platform for digital payments and loyalty solutions in Southeast Asia.

Furthermore, Fave’s merchant payment acceptance and loyalty cashback solutions will expand into both debit and credit cards platforms via Pine Labs payment terminals.

For merchants working with Pine Labs in Southeast Asia, they will gain access to Fave’s loyalty solutions and reward their customers with cashback. In addition to that, they will get consolidation of payments and access to transparent reporting, payment reconciliation, customer insights and demographic data via access to Fave’s digital dashboard, Favebiz.

Fave’s collaboration Pine Labs is an extension of its ongoing focus on working with major banks, fintech firms and e-wallets in Singapore and Malaysia via SGQR, Paynet, and DuitNow QR to bring about customer loyalty solutions to the broader payments ecosystem. The collaboration is also crucial in furthering each company’s market positioning and value proposition in Southeast Asia.

Also Read: O2O platform Fave raises US$20M in Series B round

Fave Co-Founder and CEO Joel Neoh, said, “With digitalisation playing an increasingly critical role in the recovery of Southeast Asia’s economy, merchants recognise that they need to accelerate the development of digital solutions to ensure they remain competitive. We will work with Pine Labs to further strengthen Fave’s mission of helping merchants adapt to and digitalise in the new normal.”

Southeast Asia’s post-pandemic recovery has started with promising signs that it is underway with specific sectors such as automotive sales and F&B reporting business recovery and pent-up demand from customers.

According to research by Mastercard’s Impact Studies, there has been a notable decrease in cash usage since the start of the pandemic. The Asia Pacific region is leading the surge in digital payments with the majority of consumers believing it is the cleaner, safer way to pay. Ninety-one per cent of those surveyed reported that they are now using tap-and-go payments.

The commercial partnership between Fave and Pine Labs seeks to support this recovery.

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Image Credit: Fave

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AwanTunai, a supply chain financing services startup in Indonesia, has raised up to US$20 million, led by private debt investor Accial Capital.

Also Read: Fave raises funding from Pine Labs to expand cashless payment solutions to SMEs

The fintech startup intends to use the funds to accelerate the expansion of its wholesaler supplier financing and AwanTempo, its flagship inventory purchase financing programme that enables merchants to seize the opportunity to sell more, earn more and improve cash flow management.

For Indonesia’s 60 million micro-merchants, cash remains a mainstay of doing business. Major hurdles in lending to merchants have traditionally been a lack of data for formal credit underwriting and market fragmentation.

Founded in 2017 by Dino Setiawan, Windy Natriavi and Rama Notowidigdo, AwanTunai seeks to digitise the country’s offline, fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) and food supply chain by providing micro-merchants access to supply chain financing services.

Leveraging valuable merchant transaction data that is predictive of credit performance, AwanTunai can originate low-interest financing to this underserved and unbanked segment.

Working with wholesalers, AwanTunai serves underserved micro SMEs (‘warung’ grocery stores) with inventory ordering, digital payments, and low cost inventory purchase financing.

“Our vision is affordable financing for the millions of underserved micro businesses that employ 90 per cent of Indonesia’s workforce. We collaborate with banks and funds that understand our transaction data based risk management. Low-cost institutional capital accessing Indonesia’s vast unbanked and underbanked market is the way to achieve impact at scale,” said Dino Setiawan, CEO of AwanTunai.

In brief: Singapore’s crowd influencer marketing platform Partipost raises US$3.5M

In 2017, AwanTunai raised a US$4.3 million Series A round, led by Insignia Venture Partners and AMTD group.

Accial Capital is an impact-focused, tech-enabled investor in small business and consumer loan portfolios in Latin America and Southeast Asia.

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Image Credit: AwanTunai

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Following the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been a huge debate on whether a company should focus on ramping up marketing or cutting back costs.

While some are opting for the latter, others are being more perceptive and coming up with innovative ways to engage customers during the crisis.

In an interview with e27, Marketing Director of AppsFlyer (APAC), Beverly Chen points out how marketers are using retargeting method as a popular choice to gain traffic or installs during the pandemic and some ways to measure its effectiveness.

Also known as remarketing, retargeting is a method used by marketers to keep customers hooked on to a brand after they leave a website or an app.

This can be done by showing targeted ads to users that have previously shown an interest in a brand or similar brands. Popular brands such as Instagram and Facebook are notoriously known for utilising this.

Also Read: Is virtual reality the next big marketing channel?

Measuring effectiveness

On being asked about the KPIs that can be used to measure the effectiveness of the retargeting marketing campaign, Chen notes that measuring conversions is the most effective technique to check the efficacy of a retargeting marketing campaign.

She lists down two ways to look at the type of user conversion:

1. A re-engagement is recorded when an existing app user opens the app after engaging with a retargeting campaign

2. A reinstall is recorded after a past user engages with a retargeting campaign

She concludes saying that retargeting is often looked by marketeers as “the holy grail” and can be an effective solution to shopping cart abandonment.

Retargeting trends during COVID-19

According to Chen, app marketers in APAC have the highest rate of retargeting across all verticals, compared to other regions.

“App stores have become increasingly crowded and marketers find it more difficult to gain the attention of users and drive conversions. In this scenario retargeting proves to be a reliable engagement tactic, with conversions the highest
in APAC at 36.4 per cent,” she says.

Also Read: What you need to know about digital marketing for the new normal

During a time when app usage and sessions were peaking due to the lockdown, companies are using retargeting methods to meet user expectations and keep customers engaged to avoid stagnant apps.

“Indonesia recorded a growth of 400 per cent in two weeks (from February 24 to March 3) in retargeting conversions.  However, the rates decreased considerably after ‘living with the pandemic’ became more normalised.”

Chen continues to elaborate that, according to the company’s report, shopping is one of the verticals with the highest share of retargeting.

“It has also rapidly grown by 27 per cent in the Asia Pacific,” she says.

“Finance apps also grew by 30 per year on year, reflecting the increasing popularity of this vertical in Asia-Pacific. With finance known for the diversity of solutions and high adoption rate by users, Indonesian marketers turned to owned media to ramp up their marketing with paid media to increase their emphasis on retargeting through owned channels like email, push notifications and SMS,” she continues.

In addition to finance and shopping, gaming was also the vertical that experienced significant growth during the pandemic. In fact, they are often dubbed as the winners during the global health crisis.

AppsFlyer is one of the market leaders in mobile attribution and marketing analytics that empowers marketers to grow their business and innovate with a suite of comprehensive measurement and analytics solutions. Some of the brands it works with include giants such as Grab, Agoda, eBay, and Nike.

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Image Credit:

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It seems that Elon Musk has departed from his earlier position that the Singapore government was unsupportive and unwelcoming of Tesla, if the job postings made by the company on LinkedIn is any indicator.

As per the LinkedIn post, Tesla, one of the most valuable car makers in the world, is looking to hire people to the following positions in the Singapore market — Parts Advisor, Service Advisor, Service Manager, Vehicle Readiness Specialist, and Vehicle Service Technician.

Musk, who is known for using Twitter to share his widely controversial ideas, often takes the unconventional routes when hiring candidates. In the past, he had said that candidates applying for a job in his billion-dollar company need not graduate high school.

Also Read: Ecosystem Roundup: Grab reportedly in talks for US$500M bank loan; SCB to launch food delivery service in Thailand

In a 2014 interview with German tabloid Bild, he had said: “A PhD is definitely not required, I don’t care if you even graduated high school.”

The way he identifies potential candidates is through “evidence of exceptional ability”. “If there is a track record of exceptional achievement, then it is likely that that will continue into the future,” he said.

Today, Tesla’s parent company is worth nearly US$304.6 billion, and Musk’s relentless innovation has certainly disrupted, not just the auto world but also the outer space with the mission to colonise Mars.

Hong Seh Motors, a local dealership, claims on its website that it is the only retailer of Tesla cars in Singapore, according to Straits Times but it is still yet to be confirmed.

 

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Image Credit: Unsplash

 

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Percipient funding

The story: Singapore’s digital banking technology company Percipient has raised US$5 million funding.

Investor: Silicon Valley-based VC firm Stat Zero.

Plans with the capital: To support the launch of its digital twin solution TWINNTM.

What does Percipient do?:

Founded in 2015, Percipient is a financial services digital transformation company. TWINNTM is a digital twin for financial services that enables banks and insurers choked by legacy systems to “rapidly create a lightweight, enhanced and API-ready representation of enterprise data and processes”.

By implementing the TWINNTM, AI-powered digital services, partnerships and customer experiences are realisable without retiring or rearchitecting legacy systems. Organisations can add or transition to new-age product processors, cloud platforms and fintech solutions without the high costs, disruption risks and long project cycles of big-bang migrations.

Partipost funding

The story: Partipost, a crowd influencer marketing and commerce platform in Singapore, has secured an investment of US$3.5 million.

Investors: SPH Ventures (lead), Quest Ventures, and other unnamed investors.

Plans with the funds: To further develop Partipost’s tech platform and accelerate business expansion into Vietnam, the Philippines and Malaysia, as well as strengthen current operations in Singapore, Indonesia and Taiwan.

What does Partipost do?:

It matches brands to influencers with the highest brand affinity to drive authentic word of mouth marketing.

With data insights collected through its in-app polls and user behaviours, Partipost’s data-centric framework crowdsources influencers with follower sizes ranging from a few hundred to millions of followers.

Driving from consumers’ familiarity and increasing trust for influencer marketing and commerce, Partipost rewards influencers for both their media reach and message impact in their curated social media content message, measured in their followers’ responses.

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Image Credit: Partipost

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The first time I heard about Open Banking was in 2015 when the EU rolled out guidelines for the Second Payment Services Directive (PSD2). Many years have passed since, but Open Banking has just recently been implemented in certain parts of Southeast Asia.

This article is meant to shed light on developments in Open Banking in Southeast Asia from the point-of-view of regulators, banks, and startups.

The lists are by no means exhaustive so please feel free to give me a shout if there are new pieces of information that I should incorporate. If you’re already familiar with Open Banking, please feel free to skip the first section.

Open Banking refers to when banks allow third parties to access their customer data in order to read the data and provide additional financial services using that data or to perform transactions on the customer’s behalf. The underlying idea of Open Banking is that customers are the owner of transaction data, not banks, thus, data should be shared if the customers wish to do so.

The data access and exchange take place through Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), software links that allow secure, rapid, and dependable communication directly between two firms. If this sounds alien to you, think about a restaurant reservation application that has Google Maps embedded into it. APIs allow external applications to read data from Google and portray the data on their own applications.

Also Read: Why banks will benefit from open API

While there’s consensus that Open Banking should bring about innovation in financial services which – in theory – should benefit end consumers, determining how ‘open’ banks should be is a contentious issue. Banks have been reluctant to share customer data as they view such data to be their source of competitive advantage, enabling them to provide customised services to customers and prevent competitors from stealing the customers.

To put things into perspective, if two competing banks have the same set of customer’s financial data, they could compete for loans by offering more competitive interest rates. Therefore, allowing other entities to access customer data means banks will face heightened competition and risk losing the customer.

This is where regulations come in. Open Banking has been pushed forward by regulators of leading financial systems, including the EU, the UK, and Australia, because regulators view that the sharing of data will level the playing field for fintech players, increase customers’ access to financial services, and enhance financial innovation.

Approaches to Open Banking vary across countries, and so does the scope of implementation. Australia, the EU, and the UK have chosen a regulatory-driven approach, while others have chosen a market-driven approach.

Southeast Asia’s open banking landscape

In Southeast Asia, Open Banking is still in a nascent stage with regulators opting for a ‘market-driven’ approach. Banks are free to pursue Open Banking as they wish. By letting banks take a lead role in designing and implementing Open Banking, different banks opt to use different technical standards for their APIs.

Also Read: Temasek, Tencent inject US$35M into open-banking software company TrueLayer

This means that third parties that want to connect with banks would need to slowly integrate with one bank at a time and follow different standards or protocols, resulting in a lot of inefficiencies for both banks and third parties.

Some central banks, such as Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia, foresee this problem and have proactively launched ‘soft guidelines’ or ‘API standards’ for banks to follow if they wish to open up.

Other central banks, such as Thailand, the Philippines, and Vietnam, have not launched any guidelines or reveal their strategies on Open Banking.

Nonetheless, these central banks have rolled out payment transformation initiatives, which means that Open Banking could be next on the policy agenda.

While regulators have done an incredible job at setting implementation guidelines, more can be done. Because Open Banking is, in essence, the sharing of customer’s sensitive data, regulators have a crucial role in screening third parties who can connect with banks and access such data.

For example, the UK and the EU stipulate that third- party providers (TPP) must be registered and approved by the regulators. This has a few benefits. First, it ensures that customer data will be treated properly.

Second, this would free up banks from having to screen TPP, streamline the partner onboarding process, and reduce the bank’s liability since banks are no longer liable if they engage with inappropriate TPP or if TPP mishandles customer data. By regulating TPP, regulators can reap the benefits of Open Banking, while ensuring customer protection and bank adoption.

Also Read: Survey: Filipinos are more open to creating bank accounts via smartphones compared to foreigners

Although regulators are not stepping in to push Open Banking adoption, banks across the region have launched a public API portal, allowing third parties to connect with them and make use of customer data. However, the extent of openness varies widely.

Some of the popular APIs available among banks in Southeast Asia are bank product data, account status, payments, and cards. On the other hand, transaction data, loan origination, account opening/closing, customer reference, and authentication are harder to find.

More importantly, the process of on-boarding API partners vastly differs from bank to bank with a majority still require lengthy paperwork and manual on-boarding process. Say, a payment provider wants to connect with three banks in Thailand, it would have to approach each bank individually and file different sets of paperwork, a process which could take months.

This opens up an opportunity for API startups, such as Brankas, to serve as a middleman and handle local complexity so that any companies can make payments, transfers, and access customer account information without having to directly engage with banks.

Also Read: 4 ways the banking sector can respond to the digital transformation

It aims to be an API infrastructure that helps banks turn their legacy systems into APIs, and in turn, serve as a unified platform for third parties to connect with banks.

So far, Brankas has worked with leading banks, such as UnionBank in the Philippines and the top three banks in Indonesia, to create API portals and onboard payment partners.

Open Banking APIs from Banks

Startups in Open Banking

Few startups are operating in the Open Banking space in Southeast Asia with a majority being payment providers (PISP) because there is clear regulatory or licensing requirement for payment providers, however, other types of services are lacking. Part of the reason might be due to the inconsistency in Open Banking adoption among banks.

For example, startups that want to become an Account Aggregator (AISP) would need to be able to access and display customer data from all banks. However, to date, only nine banks – out of hundreds of banks in the region – allow third parties to access customer data.

Here is the list of Southeast Asia-based companies working on Open Banking:

Open Banking might be a hard pill to swallow, but it can bring about many benefits that are met with today’s financial system, including improving customers’ financial health by allowing them to view their financials in one place, to gain insights on their spending habits, to make payments efficiently from one place, etcetera.

Also Read: Is Japan ready for the digital banking revolution?

To realise this vision, participation from regulators, banks, and startups is a requirement rather than a nice-to-have.

This post first appeared on www.nattariya.com.

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A major crisis can either incapacitate your company’s ability to market itself, or present opportunities for your brand to thrive.

At the time of writing, several global brands have already declared bankruptcy or significantly downsized their business, including Hertz, Singapore-based oil trading company Hin Leong and WeWork, with more companies expected to follow suit, even as countries are looking to re-boot financial activities after months of lockdowns or social restrictions.

With so much uncertainty and a gloomy outlook that’s likely to last over the next few quarters of 2020, should you continue with your marketing activities, and how do you keep your audience engaged during these difficult times?

The marketing paradox: Damned if you do, damned if you don’t

Marketing is necessary for any business to flourish, yet we all know that marketing budgets are also among the hardest to justify, and especially during the current business climate, many business owners would tend to see marketing activities as luxuries as they actively seek out ways to reduce spending.

Companies are not only cutting back on marketing – in some cases, they are actually laying off their marketing teams.

Also Read: Customer is not always the king, says Tokopedia’s customer engagement expert

On the other hand, as business owners, we all know we can’t stay “quiet” for long, especially in today’s content-rich and social media-driven marketplace where your brand is likely to be forgotten when you adopt conservative strategies.

According to a recent study in May 2020 by the American Association of Advertising Agencies, 43 per cent of consumers found it reassuring to hear from their favourite brands, while 56 per cent said they like to learn how brands are helping their communities during the pandemic.

Only 15 per cent of respondents said they would not want to hear from companies at all.

What this means is that, contrary to what many of us would imagine, it actually makes more sense to increase – not decrease – marketing spend during this period if you do not want to lag behind your competition when business activities pick up again.

So how then should you approach your marketing and branding during and in the aftermath of COVID-19?

Focus on interaction with customers, not pushing products

Even as the economy reopens, remember that months of stringent social and movement restrictions coupled with gloomy economic and employment outlooks have left their mark on the psyche of your customers. The next few months or even years ahead are going to be difficult for many people, especially with the prospect of more job losses looming in the horizon.

Also Read: Is virtual reality the next big marketing channel?

It is, therefore, necessary to understand that while we are anxious to restart our business activities, we need to balance off our marketing and sales efforts with exercising empathy for customers.

Empathy is the ability to understand and feel another person’s emotions, and it becomes even more critical as we interact with customers during such difficult times. Being overly pushy with trying to get people to notice your products immediately in the aftermath of a particularly trying period is very often not the best approach in building trust.

In a post-coronavirus business environment, having an omnichannel strategy becomes even more important when interacting with customers. While multichannel marketing only looks at creating as many channels as possible to connect with customers, omnichannel adds a dimension of ensuring the user experience regardless of the chosen channel is consistent so as to truly personalise interactions with customers.

Reassure customers with your brand

Every brand seeks to add value to its target market; the most successful brands are those that connect on so many emotive points with their customers that they remain assured (and hence loyal) to the brand even in challenging times. Such was the case for recently-bankrupted Gold’s Gym – the long-standing delivery of its brand promise to keep members fit and healthy allows it to still retain a loyal following even as the brand’s future remains uncertain.

It is important for companies and businesses to try to provide an assurance to both existing and potential customers that they will still deliver on their brand promise and value proposition even during difficult times.

While it’s true that consumers are more conservative in their spending during this time, it would be a mistake to think you have to keep talking about cost-savings for those who use your product or service. Highlight the strength and unique characteristics of your brand instead of just trying to justify your pricing or how much of a “good value for money” you are.

Work your CRM

If you are looking at using multiple channels to reach out to the market, you might consider switching to a more robust Customer Relationship Management (CRM) platform. CRM allows you to gather useful data and analytics that provide you information like where your customers are coming from, who is likely to purchase your products and services, customer lifecycle, and help you keep track of your marketing campaigns.

In a post-coronavirus era, a credible CRM system is like a marketing multi-tool for you to gain massive outreach: you can segment your client base into distinct categories and take advantage of built-in features like emails, customised messages, send out event invites and a whole lot more to deliver the omnichannel-optimised user experience.

Don’t promote fear

The last thing anyone needs right now are brands taking advantage of fear and panic to promote their products and services. Fear is never a good motivator, and while you want greater brand visibility, you do not want to create negative associations with your brand name.

Also Read: The only customer engagement strategy businesses need during a crisis

What you really should be focused on is telling your audience why they should take proactive positive measures to cope better with the tough times, not tell them about the dire consequences of not using your product. We talked about empathy early on, and you will miss out on opportunities to build genuine connections with your customers when the focus is on using fear to motivate people to make a purchase.

Review your product offering

With a gloomy economic outlook ahead, consumers are likely to focus on purchasing essentials rather than spend money on luxury goods and services. You have to, therefore, target the essential product segment and come up with a brand narrative that fits that picture.

For instance, you may have a brand that deals exclusively with high-performance one-on-one coaching with clients. This may be a good time to consider introducing a range of functional fitness training programmes that can cater to the needs of a wider audience. Doing so does not necessarily dilute your brand identity – it just makes your brand more accessible to a larger audience with a different goal or need.

Focus on the longevity of your branding

Brand longevity is really about ensuring how you can remain relevant to the market in different circumstances. The current chatter is focused on dealing with health- and economic-related issues – any brand that talks about these issues will, therefore, gain visibility quickly; yet to skew your entire marketing and branding angle to what’s relevant now would be short-sighted.

You need to look at angles that allow you to build new narratives and pivot quickly to remain relevant to your audience when circumstances change.

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